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Are the kung fu skills of a newborn orchid mantis a match for a jumping spider?
If a newly hatched orchid mantis isn’t both quick and cunning, it’s likely to end up an easy lunch for a larger predator. And since orchid mantises are unfussy carnivores that aren’t above cannibalism, even members of their own species pose an imminent threat. In this excerpt from BBC’s Life Story series, a newborn mantis must employ some spectacular inborn self-defence skills against a hungry jumping spider if it wants to survive its first day.
Narrator: David Attenborough
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Nature and landscape
‘A culture is no better than its woods’ – what our trees reveal about us, by W H Auden
5 minutes
video
Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
14 minutes
video
Biology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
4 minutes
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Fairness and equality
There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa
10 minutes
video
Biology
‘Save the parasites’ may not be a popular rallying cry – but it could be a vital one
11 minutes
video
Evolution
The many ways a lizard tongue sticks, grasps, pinches and plops – in slo-mo
6 minutes
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Animals and humans
Villagers struggle to keep their beloved, endangered ape population afloat
19 minutes
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Biology
Starlings swoosh like brushstrokes across the sky in this dazzling short
3 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
The tree frog die-off that sparked a global mystery – and revealed a dark truth
15 minutes